Grimm's Household Tales

A certain tailor had a son who happened to be small, no bigger than a thumb, and for this reason he was always called Thumbling. He had some courage in him, however, and he said to his father, “Father, I must and will go out into the world.” “That’s right, my son,” said the old man. He took a long darning needle and made a knob of sealing wax on it at the candle, saying, “and there is a sword for you to take with you on the way.” Then the little tailor wanted to have one more meal with them, and he hopped into the kitchen to see what his lady mother had cooked for the last time. It had just been dished up, and the dish stood on the hearth. Then he said, “Mother, what is there to eat today?” “See for yourself,” said his mother. So Thumbling jumped onto the hearth and peeped into the dish, but he stretched his neck in too far, and the steam from the food caught hold of him and carried him up the chimney. He rode about in the air on the steam for a while, until at length he sank down to the ground again. Now the little tailor was outside in the wide world, and he traveled about and went to a master in his craft, but the food was not good enough for him. “Mistress, if you give us no better food,” said Thumbling, “I will go away, and early tomorrow morning I will write with chalk on the door of your house, ‘Too many potatoes, too little meat! Farewell, Mr. Potato King.’” “What do you want, then, grasshopper?” said the mistress, and she grew angry, seized a dishcloth, and was just going to strike him. But my little tailor crept nimbly under a thimble, peeped out from beneath it, and put his tongue out at the mistress. She took up the thimble and wanted to get hold of him, but little Thumbling hopped into the cloth, and while the mistress was opening it out and looking for him, he got into a crevice in the table. “Ho, ho, lady mistress,” he cried, and thrust his head out, and when she began to strike him, he leapt down into the drawer. At last, however, she caught him and drove him out of the house.

The little tailor journeyed on and came to a great forest, and there he fell in with a band of robbers who had a plan to steal the King’s treasure. When they saw the little tailor, they thought, “A little fellow like that can creep through a keyhole and serve as a picklock for us.” “Hello,” cried one of them, “you giant Goliath, will you go to the treasure chamber with us? You can slip yourself in and throw out the money.” Thumbling thought it over for a while, and at length he said, “Yes,” and went with them to the treasure chamber. Then he looked at the doors above and below to see if there was any crack in them. It was not long before he spotted one broad enough to let him in. He was about to get in at once, but one of the two sentries who stood before the door noticed him and said to the other, “What an ugly spider is creeping there. I will kill it.” “Leave the poor creature alone,” said the other. “It has done you no harm.” Then Thumbling got safely through the crevice into the treasure chamber, opened the window beneath which the robbers were standing, and threw out to them one thaler after another. When the little tailor was in the full swing of his work, he heard the King coming to inspect his treasure chamber, and he crept hastily into a hiding place. The King noticed that several solid thalers were missing, but could not imagine who could have stolen them, for the locks and bolts were in good condition, and everything seemed well guarded. Then he went away again and said to the sentries, “Be on the watch. Someone is after the money.” So when Thumbling started his labors again, they heard the money moving and a sound of klink, klink, klink. They ran swiftly in to seize the thief, but the little tailor, who heard them coming, was still swifter. He leapt into a corner, covered himself with a thaler so that nothing could be seen of him, and at the same time mocked the sentries and cried, “Here I am!” The sentries ran there, but by the time they arrived, he had already hopped into another corner under a thaler and was crying, “Ho, ho, here I am!” The watchmen sprang there in haste, but Thumbling had long ago got into a third corner and was crying, “Ho, ho, here I am!” And so he made fools of them and drove them around the treasure chamber for so long that they grew weary and went away. Then little by little he threw all the thalers out, dispatching the last one with all his might, then hopped nimbly onto it and flew down with it through the window. The robbers paid him great compliments. “You are a valiant hero,” they said. “Will you be our captain?”

Thumbling, however, declined, and said he wanted to see the world first. They now divided the booty, but the little tailor asked for only a kreuzer because he could not carry more.

Then he once more buckled on his sword, said goodbye to the robbers, and took to the road. First he went to work with some masters, but he had no liking for that, and at last he hired himself out as a manservant in an inn. The maids, however, could not endure him, for he saw everything they did in secret, without their seeing him, and he told their master and mistress what they had taken off the plates and carried away out of the cellar for themselves. Then they said, “Wait, and we will pay you back!” and they arranged with each other to play a trick on him. Soon afterward, when one of the maids was mowing in the garden and saw Thumbling jumping about and creeping up and down the plants, she quickly mowed him up with the grass, tied everything in a great cloth, and secretly threw it to the cows. Among them was a great black one, who swallowed him down without hurting him. Down below, however, he did not like it, for it was quite dark, and no candle was burning there. When the cow was being milked, he cried,

“Strip, strap, strull, / Will the pail soon be full?”

But the noise of the milking kept him from being understood. After this the master of the house came into the cow barn and said, “That cow shall be killed tomorrow.” Then Thumbling was so alarmed that he cried out in a clear voice, “Let me out first, for I am shut up inside her.” The master heard that quite well, but he did not know where the voice came from. “Where are you?” he asked. “In the black one,” answered Thumbling, but the master did not understand what that meant and went out.

Next morning the cow was killed. Happily Thumbling did not receive a single blow during the cutting up and chopping; he got in among the sausage meat. And when the butcher came in and began his work, he cried out with all his might, “Don’t chop too deep, don’t chop too deep, I am in the middle of it.” No one heard this because of the noise of the chopping knife. Now poor Thumbling was in trouble, but trouble sharpens the wits, and he sprang out so skillfully between the blows that none of them touched him, and he escaped with a whole skin. But still he could not get away; there was nothing for it but to let himself be stuffed into a blood sausage with the bits of bacon. His quarters there were rather cramped, and besides that, he was hung up in the chimney to be smoked, and there time hung terribly heavy on his hands.

At length in winter he was taken down again, as the blood sausage had to be set before a guest. When the hostess was cutting it in slices, he took care not to stretch his head out too far, lest a bit of it be cut off. At last he saw his opportunity, cleared a passage for himself, and jumped out.

The little tailor, however, would not stay any longer in a house where he fared so badly, so he set out on his journey again at once. But his liberty did not last long. In the open country he met a fox, who snapped him up in a fit of absentmindedness. “Hello, Mr. Fox,” cried the little tailor, “it is I who am sticking in your throat. Set me at liberty again.” “You are right,” answered the fox. “You are next to nothing to me, but if you will promise me the fowls in your father’s yard, I will let you go.” “With all my heart,” replied Thumbling. “You shall have all the cocks and hens; that I promise you.” Then the fox let him go again and carried him home himself. When the father saw his dear son once more, he willingly gave the fox all the fowls he had. “For this I also bring you a handsome bit of money,” said Thumbling, and he gave his father the kreuzer that he had earned on his travels.

“But why did the fox get the poor chickens to eat?” “Oh, you goose, your father would surely love his child far more than the fowls in the yard!”